


Edgeless

by ossseous (ozean)



Series: Moments Stolen [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Awkward Flirting, Class Differences, Class Issues, Gloves, Guilt, M/M, Master & Servant, Masturbation, Sexuality Crisis, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 03:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9157201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozean/pseuds/ossseous
Summary: How many times had the thought crept up within him, mulling around the surface of his thoughts, urging him to reach out and just touch?  How many times had he managed to push it back?  And yet in a single second, propriety lost and sanity abandoned, his resolved crumbled almost emphatically.Or, A Valet AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Second part in the Moments Stolen series, I highly suggest reading [the first vignette.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9114247)

Mr. Graves paused at the door.  A sort of abrupt halt, a still unease settling between them as he stared with bored indifference at the gloves Credence held out for him.  Since that morning he broke their routine he waited for everything to come to an end.  He felt certain of the inevitability that he would, at the least, get fired.  That was the minimum of what he deserved as far as he was concerned.

But more than the sinking feeling that came in step with waiting for the other shoe to drop, he felt frustration.  How many times had the thought crept up within him, mulling around the surface of his thoughts, urging him to reach out and just _touch_?  How many times had he managed to push it back?  And yet in a single second, propriety lost and sanity abandoned, his resolved crumbled almost emphatically.

Morning after morning passed with little deviance beyond the change from the lighter cotton shirts to the warmer broadcloths as the months got cooler and cooler.

So, when he stopped there Credence felt certain the time had finally come.  They stood still, unmoving by that heavy front door that he had hung a winter wreath of fir sprigs upon not two days before.  He swallowed back his shame against the roar of silence and readied himself for his termination, readied himself to return to his room and pack up his few belongings and return to that dark, gray house halfway across the city.

But all Mr. Graves did was lift his hand, fingers limp and palm down, towards him.

He didn’t understand at first.  Only stared down at the proffered hand and tried to will his expression away from outright confusion and into something more neutral, professional.

But then it clicked.  He wanted to ask why, wanted to know if he was correct, but his throat felt dry with every raw swallow he failed to take.

He set the right glove behind him, the sound quiet as the soft gray leather fell lightly on the foyer table.  Turning back, he blinked away his hesitance and pulling open the cuff, slipped the glove over that lone outstretched hand.

He pushed the glove up as far as he could and quickly worked to pull the fingers taught, to smooth out any wrinkles.  All the while a mantra of “professional, professional, professional” beat rhythmically through his thoughts until he finally buttoned the wrist.

He shut his eyes, steeled himself for the second glove by taking in a shaky, feeble breath.  More than anything he wished he could have somehow anchored himself, kept himself from getting swept away.  But as he retrieved the second glove, he couldn’t help but sink into it, that exhilaration of being unmoored.

He took a step closer, edging nearer to Mr. Graves than he had been before.  Looking down, he found the other hand held out, bare and naked compared to its companion hanging at his side.  He let his eyes roam the smooth knuckles and clean fingernails.  For a fleeting, barely even existent moment, he entertained the idea that had he stepped any closer, those fingers might have brushed against the buttons of his jacket—pushed them through the buttonholes.

Refusing to look up, he lifted the second glove.  He aimed to take his time, to draw it out as he slipped it up those fingers and let the material drag slowly across the skin.

Perhaps he imagined it—the feeling of Mr. Graves’ breath puffed out across his cheek.  Warm against his skin as he tugged the glove up and up and up, only stopping when he met resistance where the lining caught tight against the knuckle of his thumb.  But he didn’t think he imagined the touch that followed—the slightest brush of a nose against his jaw as he worked the glove the rest of the way.  Or how Mr. Graves' chest expanded with each deep breath he took.  Perhaps it was something that would've gone unnoticed with another person, someone not as intimately familiar with the nuance of his breathing.  But there was nothing normal about it, how it had turned slightly hitched as he kneaded the leather up each finger.  Slightly caught as he smoothed the folds and wrinkles until the glove hugged every crease and joint and notch of his hand.

He nearly despaired at the thought that this moment was to end.  Seconds rapidly rushed by until all that was left was the button.

He bit his lip, cupping his fingers beneath his palm to pull his hand needlessly closer.  He batted away the notion that perhaps, just perhaps, he could’ve brought the hand to his cheek and let knuckles brush along the arch of his cheekbone.  Oh, how he would've gasped to feel it wrap warmly along his jaw.  In another universe, another time, he could’ve done so without hesitance.

But he did no such thing.  Only cradled the hand between his own two palms, his skin pale even against that light, faded gray.  He allowed himself the barest touch then, to linger a single finger against the soft skin of Mr. Graves' wrist, where his pulse thrummed steadily, nothing like the hammering that beat away in his own heart.

Then, with the greatest of unwillingness, he fastened the button.

He released his lip from the painful pinch of his teeth.  He needed to detach, to pull away, to slink away from this heavy air they shared between them.  So, Credence took a step back, handed over his homburg, and cleared his stiff throat.

“Have a good day, sir.”  He stepped aside, opening the door wide.  Though he could not look up past where his gloved hands hung by his sides, he could feel how those eyes bore into him.  He wished more than anything that he could’ve known what Mr. Graves was thinking then.  He longed for an insight into that mind that so easily shielded itself to him, to everyone who tried to pick apart the puzzle that was Percival Graves.

Finally, he swept out onto the sidewalk and Credence shut the door behind him.

\--

He did not rush.  He could not rush.  He didn’t want to draw the attention of any of the maids.  He felt certain they would stop to peer around doorways and corners just to find the source of anything that sounded out of place.  So, with as much discretion as he could muster, he made his way up the stairs.

He stopped at the second floor landing, more out of habit than anything else.  To make it up to the fourth floor where he resided with the rest of the help, he should’ve kept going straight.

But he turned there, where the large portrait of some past ancestral Mr. Graves hung and watched them all as they worked throughout the day.  To the left, where the hall turned, was Mr. Graves’ floor.  The present Mr. Graves of course, though Credence shuddered at the thought that past Mr. Graveses likely resided there as well.

Did their spirits watch over the house, judge him as he watched Mr. Graves, endlessly—tirelessly.  Like he was some kind of hawk watching the shrubs below for the slightest sign of a field mouse straying from cover.  Not with ill intent, but with desperation for just a morsel to satiate an aching, primeval hunger.

He could have gone straight and done just what that painting wanted him to do: obey the strict laws that delineated people like him from people like them.  But he turned left instead.

There was a certain kind of peace to his floor once the corner was turned and the portrait was out of sight.  Most of the time, during the day at least, it was quiet.  The only exception was when the maids came through with their brooms and their dusters and sopping rags hanging on their buckets of soapy water and got each room clean for Mr. Graves’ return.

There weren’t many rooms on the second floor, only enough to house Mr. Graves' office, his parlor, and finally, at the very end of the hall, his bedroom.

There really was no turning back once he made the choice, so he picked up his pace before all but shoving the bedroom door open.  He only caught it before it could knock back into the wall cause some long bang to echo throughout the house.  He managed to shut it much more quietly and pressed his forehead into that smooth, wood grain.

He couldn't bring himself to turn or to even let go of the doorknob.  But he did glance behind him into the room. 

He spent every morning and every evening in that room.  Knew every corner and every shelf and every knickknack.  Yet in that instant, with the late morning sun peaking over the neighbor’s roof and streaming in through the window, it looked vastly different.  Bright and almost welcoming.  Not the kind of place he had come to simultaneously long for and dread.

He let out a painful breath, completely unaware of how long he had been holding it back, only that it had become a stagnant and stinging pain in his chest.  Unable to consolidate what he was looking at and what he was about to do, he shut his eyes, turned back to the door, and let his hand fall to the band of his trousers.

He gasped at the faint, almost nonexistent sound the button made as he thumbed it free.  He shut his eyes even tighter, as though if he shut them hard enough, it made all of it melt away into some sort of dream.  Something he could wake up from with shame that lingered but a day or two before finally dissolving as he prayed for forgiveness.  But it was real.  All of it.  The way the wood felt beneath his hand as he planted his palm against it, scraped his fingernails down it.  The way his other hand slipped past the fly of his trousers and between the buttons of his underwear.

His hand hovered for a single, trembling breath, caught beneath the restricting layers of overarm fabric and between the too little space between his hips and the door.  Briefly he hesitated as he threatened to stumble over a precipice, peering over into some dark, edgeless sea of uncertainty.

But then, more easily than he wished, he tipped over.

And he should’ve known the second he pressed his hand to warm, ridged flesh that ached and ache and ache, that nothing could be the same.  Perhaps if he hadn’t let his mind wander, if he had clung to vague, shapeless feelings and thoughts and wishes, he could’ve walked out of that room without the backbreaking weight of shame.

But instead he thought of wide fingers, the only callouses on them from monogrammed fountain pens and silver letter openers.  In the space of his mind they were not covered by gloves and clothes did not obstruct their path.  They reached out to brush along his cheek, his jaw.  He’d turn his head into that touch, try to catch the tips with his lips, or if he was brave, with his teeth.  Before he could though, they’d dip, trail down past the line of his neck to press, only for a moment, just above where his heart beat heavy and fast with gulping thirst.  They wouldn’t stay there.  Rather they slipped further, lower, to tug him and pull him in eager strokes that finally, _finally_ , dragged out that gasping, desperate release he had been waiting on for far too long.

He finished too quickly and numbness took over.  He could not bask in satisfaction as his mind thrashed for something to hold onto.  Too stunned by the enormity of what he just did, he choked back a sob.

Finally, he opened his eyes and found himself met only by the door, the white wood grain only darkened by his own shadow cast upon it.  He could not turn, could not look at the room behind him.  Instead he collected himself. He righted his clothes, carefully and quietly turned the door knob, and stepped out into the hall without even a glance behind him.

He hoped he could sneak up to his room without attracting any notice.  Hoped that no one would notice him missing, ask why he had changed clothes, or wonder what wicked thing he’d done behind that closed door.

**Author's Note:**

> so, I'm on [tumblr](http://www.ossseous.tumblr.com).


End file.
